We are what we think | Valerie Mason-John | TEDxRenfrewCollingwood

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

How can we stop bullying in the world? Over 60% of kids say they've been bullied at school, and for every one "successful" suicide, there's over 100 attempted suicides. A survivor of bullying, Valerie Mason-John uses her expertise as a bully doctor and personal experience to suggest that bullying does not have to be part of every day life. In this gritty, moving, and powerful talk, Mason-John gives a clear message, that our "stinking thinking" can be the cause of bullying. And when we bully ourselves, we will bully everyone around us. She outlines a course of action we can take to work with this global epidemic.

Award-winning author, Dr Valerie Mason-John works as a Bully Doctor for several School Boards in Canada. Her books include "Detox Your Heart," working with anger, fear, and hatred. Valerie co-edited the first national anthology of African Canadian Poetry, The Great Black North, published in 2013. Demeter Press has published her most recent novel, the North American edition of her award winning novel Borrowed Body, 2013. In January 2014, she will launch her new book "Eight Step Recovery -- Using the Buddha's Teachings to Overcome Addiction." She lives in British Columbia.

A couple of years ago,

a friend said to me,
"Your life is a miracle."

I said, "A miracle?"

Well, you know you tend to think
of your childhood as normal,

well, until you talk
to some of your friends.

Anyway, miracle or not,

I've dedicated my life
to working with people.

One day, I woke up in my bed,
and I thought, "Wow!

Forget about drugs, alcohol,
food, sex, or rock and roll.

My biggest addiction is guess what?
Yep, my thinking.

I'm sure you all know
what I'm talking about:

those thoughts that tell us
we're not good enough,

thoughts that have been
haunting us for years.

I call this my stinking thinking.

(Laughter)

Just imagine if people
could hear that stink.

Well, here's a censored version of mine.

My stink says I need
an electric shock. I took stock.

My shrink said all Negroes
are manic. I didn't panic.

My stink says I need a rest.
I failed its test.

My shrink says all Negroes
are aggressive. I let him live.

(Laughter)

My shrink said I should be grateful.
I was resentful.

My shrink says I've got
marijuana psychosis.

I smoked his prognosis.

My stink says I am depressed.
I was distressed.

My shrink says I belong
in the gutter. I didn't stutter.

My shrink says I shouldn't be seen.
I reminded him I am the Queen.

My stink says
I'll end up scrubbing floors.

I didn't speak anymore.

Ha, ha, my shrink says I need pills.

I need pills? I pushed him off the hill.

The shrink in this poem

represents all the people
in my life who had bullied me

from childhood into adulthood,

from the people who raised me,
who called me gruesome,

to the people who physically,
mentally, sexually bullied me,

to my peers who would chant in my face,

"Waga matter, are you all white?

Oh nigga-mind, go black home
and eat your coonflakes,

and you'll be all white in the morning.

You will! Go black home
and eat your sambo flakes

and you'll be all white; promise!"

I was bullied so much
that I began bullying myself

to the extent I first tried
to take my life age 12,

again a year later,

and was lucky to survive
my third attempt aged 18.

I'm one of those kids

who was fostered at six weeks
and placed in several foster homes.

Age four, I was placed into an orphanage,

aged 11, I was sent to live
with my biological mother.

I was taken away by the police
18 months later.

Living on the streets, age 15,

picked up for shoplifting
six months later,

and placed in a children's
prison for 18 months.

If you had spoken
to some of the adults in my life then

and said, "That kid there,

one day will be the author
of several books and plays,

work as a bully doctor,

be awarded an honorary Doctorate
for her lifetime achievements,"

they would have laughed in your face.

They would have said, "Absolutely no way!

Valerie Mason-John?
That kid will end up in the gutter."

And you know what? I believed them.

I believed all the negative things
that people told me.

I had to stop bullying myself
with the thoughts in my head

that told me I was useless, no good,
that I was a failure, worthless

because they were keeping me in a rut.

I wasn't living, I was surviving.

And if that wasn't enough,
I continued to bully myself

with the chronic disease
of anorexia, bulimia nervosa.

I'm lucky; some of those kids
out there who were bullied

by their parents, or by other adults,
or by their siblings, or by their peers

aren't here to tell their stories today

because they took their own lives
or because they died of a drug overdose.

I'm telling you all of this
because I don't want

to turn on my computer,
or my television, or a radio,

or open a newspaper and learn

that another young person
has died because of bullying

or an adult has taken their life
because they were bullied

in the home or the workplace.

These are inconceivable deaths.

You see those people out there,
living on the streets,

people who are homeless,

people walking around
with mental and emotional disturbances,

many of them were bullied,
and we stigmatize them.

Our stinking thinking can cause

our own or another person's
depression, mental illness,

or at worst, death.

You may be wondering
how did I get to be standing here today

when once, I was so far away
from this place.

I was fed up of being a victim,

tired of surviving, ready to begin living.

I stopped believing
those pernicious stories,

and I put the weight
of those narratives down.

You know the ones:

the negative, judgmental things
that adults told us

when we were children,
and now we claim them as our own.

The stories that put us
at the center of everything,

and whenever anything
goes wrong, it's all about us.

It was our fault that our parents
walked out on us,

our fault that our parents
loved some of our siblings better than us,

our fault that our parents abused us,

our fault that our partner
walked out on us,

that our kids messed up.

The stories that tell us

that we should have got that job,
we should have known better;

should, should, should.

Stop believing in this negative chatter
that makes your life a living hell.

We cannot control
another person's actions,

but we can control our own.

We're powerless over the thoughts
that enter our heads,

but we are responsible
for what we do with them.

For example, we get that evaluation
of our work performance,

and we received
20 excellent glowing remarks,

but there's one tiny comment that says

there's room for improvement
in a particular skill - exactly!

Ouch! We get that
horrid feeling in our gut,

and we move into aversion,

and we start bullying ourselves
with, "I'm no good,"

"My boss is picking on me,"
"Everybody's talking about me,"

"Nobody likes me,"
"People are blaming me!"

Stop! Stop thinking over poop!

(Laughter)

Your stinking thinking
will get in the way of your happiness.

Whenever we bully ourselves,
we will bully everybody around us,

projecting all the things
we don't like about ourselves onto others.

So what can we do?

I can only answer this question
by sharing my personal recovery.

When I fell down on a journey,

I had to stop beating myself
up into the gutter,

I had to pick myself up

and literally, give myself
a hug and tell myself it's OK.

This is a new moment;
let go and move on.

I spent many nights laying in my bed

waiting to be rescued,
waiting for that magic pill to cure me.

The cure was staring me in my face.

It was my pillow.

I needed rest so I could change,

I needed to stop trying to take care
of my stinking thinking

by stuffing it down
with drugs, food, alcohol, or sex.

I had to learn to sit
with the pain of my thoughts.

It was during one of these moments
I had an epiphany.

Fifteen years ago, I had been terrified.

I was about to walk

into a three-week rehearsal
for my one-woman show,

and I was sick with my bulimia,
and my throat was hoarse,

and the publicity had already gone out;

and I lay in bed hating myself,
berating myself with the voice,

"You idiot, you can never
go ahead with that show,"

and a whisper said, "Yes, you can."

And I said, "How?"

And the whisper said, "Just let go
of your stinking thinking."

And in that moment,

I could see clearly, for the first time,
that I had a choice.

I fell asleep exhausted from my tears,

but I woke up the next morning
knowing that there was something

that I wanted more
than my stinking thinking.

I wanted to do that show,
and I wanted my recovery,

but I had to admit

that every time I relapsed,
every time I had a slip,

I was choosing my addiction
over my recovery.

It was a hard fact to swallow.

But yes, of course, I had help.

That help was the practice
of loving kindness.

Loving kindness was a salve
that healed my heart.

I had to learn to love myself

by paying attention
to my stinking thinking.

I had to learn to give myself affection

by looking in the mirror
with warm, kind, loving eyes,

I had to find things
to appreciate myself for,

but the hardest thing, though,
was learning to accept myself,

letting go of my self-hatred

that was stuck in the past
and in the future,

and seeing clearly
that self-love and acceptance

was in this present moment, now.

I stopped waiting for people in my life
to give me that attention,

affection, appreciation,
and acceptance that I hungered for

because my stinking thinking
would make sure it was never enough.

But when I learned
to give myself loving kindness,

it gave me the strength and courage

to have my voice
to speak out against bullying.

I don't care even if it's somebody
in authority who's bullying you.

You have to speak out
until somebody hears you.

It's a myth to say

that when we speak out against bullying,
it will make it worse.

Research proves that when
we name it, it will decline.

If we don't speak out about bullying,

we will continue to bully ourselves
with all our self-harming behaviors.

When I first learned to speak out
about my abusive past,

just to one other person,
it was enough for me

to begin to stop listening
to that negative chatter.

I heard a whisper that told me,

"I love you,"

"I'm beautiful,"

"I am unique," "I am good enough."

I made it a habit to tell myself daily
until it became like brushing my teeth.

Whenever that toxic voice arises today,

I don't listen to it,
and I don't believe it.

I just tell myself
it's my alarm bell warning me

that I'm feeling vulnerable,

and I need to take care
of myself right now.

The how was in the pause.

I would literally stop
and take a deep breath.

The breath was the handbrake
on my stinking thinking.

It gave me the pause to see
that my thoughts are not facts,

that my thinking is based on stories
of judgments, and anger, and resentments.

When I stopped listening
to this negative chatter in my head,

I thought my life
was going to become boring

because a part of me enjoyed
my stinking thinking.

But instead, I discovered
a new happiness and freedom.

Loving kindness saved my life.

Loving kindness can save yours.

Many years ago,
I hated the color of my skin.

As a child, I tried bleaching my skin.

In my early teens,

I internalized all the negative views
from the Black community

who told me the darker I was,
the uglier I was.

In my early 20s, I wrote a poem
called "The color of my skin,"

which toured all the major galleries
in the United Kingdom

as part of a self-portrait exhibition.

Only a few years ago,

I had the courage to commit
this poem to memory.

I offer you this poem to remind you

to stop bullying yourself
with all those self-harming behaviors.

(Reciting) "The color of my skin

is the root of my ecstasy,
the seed of my life.

The color of my skin

is one of nature's glories,
the bloom of my life.

The color of my skin

is the flower of my legacy,
the taboo of my oppressors.

The color of my skin

is the greatness of my splendor,
the guilt of my kidnappers.

The color of my skin
is the celebration of Eden.

Black is an omnipotent being,
the rejoicing of life.

Black, the color of many skins,
is nature's own deliberation.

The color of my skin
is your fear, my strength,

your ignorance, my wisdom,
your blemish, my beauty."

This story isn't just about me,
it's a universal story.

Bullying affects everyone,

from the governments
who repeatedly bully another country

by saying if you don't do what I tell you,
I will drop a bomb on you;

to the child in the playground
who repeatedly teases another child;

to us, who can repeatedly bully ourselves.

It's a sad fact that many of us

will be bullied, or bully ourselves,
or even be a bully,

but it's a myth to say

that bullying is innate,
and there's nothing you can do about it.

Bullying is a learned behavior,
and behavior can be changed.

Renounce your stinking thinking now.

We are what we think.

(Applause)